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To misquote that doyen of sensibility Courtney Love, "Well, they say that emo's dead and they're probably right". But hey, let's give this gig a chance eh?
Tonight's support act Aereogramme are an oddity - they have a singer who resembles what you imagine Fran Healy would look like if he acquired a bit of a meths habit, a guitarist who's the dead spit of Bill Bailey and a bassist who looks like he's on loan from Saxon. It's also fair to say that they sound rather a lot like Queens of the Stone Age, so much so in fact that you half expect them to launch into a song listing all their favourite pharmaceuticals and calling it the "Feel Okay-ish-I-S'pose Non-Hit of the Autumn". Unfortunately, while Queens of the Stone Age are rightly hailed as rock gods, Aereogramme are average at best with the songs dragging on interminably at times. A classic case of more haste less noodling here.
It's always mystified me how Hell Is For Heroes ever got landed with the "emo" tag to begin with to be honest - on the evidence of their debut album last year they sounded more to these ears like the Foo Fighters on morphine as opposed to tuneless drone merchants like Rival Schools. Tonight sees them on excellent form, blasting in with "Out Of Sight" and ver kids rightly go ape-wire for it with stage-divers launching themselves into the pit like it's the last gig they'll ever see to top drawer moshpit fodder like "Five Kids Go" and "I Can Climb Mountains". There's also a fair bit of new material on show tonight which continues to showcase their knack with a good riff and suitably tuneful angst. However, on the down side, it doesn't really show much progress from the older stuff to be honest and you get the feeling this could count against them during the imminent comeback. Like it or not, as I said before, Hell Is For Heroes have been saddled with the tag of being an emo band and with that particular genre currently somewhat less than fashionable at the moment, the lack of development could well sideline them in the eyes of the (spit!) mainstream music mags. But on the evidence of the rapturous reception they get tonight and the sheer energy they put into their performance, you'd be a fool to write Hell Is For Heroes off just yet.
Review by Andy James
